Pubdate: Wed, 21 Nov 2007
Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU)
Copyright: 2007 The Gazette, a division of Southam Inc.
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274
Author: Richard Foot, CanWest News Service
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)

MANDATORY TERMS IN WORKS FOR TRAFFICKING

Bill Also Targets Drug Growers. Newest Stage In Tories' Crime Crackdown

The Conservative government unveiled historic legislation yesterday 
to create the first mandatory prison terms in Canada for people 
convicted of trafficking illicit drugs.

The proposed changes are the newest chapter in the Harper 
government's sweeping crackdown on crime, which includes bills before 
Parliament to toughen rules for repeat violent offenders, and to keep 
accused young offenders in jail before their trials.

Canada's Controlled Drugs and Substances Act currently contains no 
mandatory prison sentences for anyone convicted under the act.

Judges use their own discretion about whether to send drug pushers 
and growers to prison.

However, the new bill proposes to make mandatory: a one-year prison 
term for dealing drugs while using a weapon, or for dealing drugs in 
support of organized crime; a two-year prison term for dealing 
cocaine, heroin or methamphetamines to young people, or for dealing 
them near a school or any place young people are known to frequent; a 
six-month prison sentence for growing as little as one marijuana 
plant, for the purposes of trafficking; a two-year prison term for 
running a marijuana grow operation of at least 500 plants; a doubling 
of the maximum prison term for cannabis production from seven to 14 years.

The Conservatives are also proposing to allow judges to exempt 
certain offenders from mandatory prison terms, on condition that they 
complete drug-treatment court programs.

Drug-treatment courts are designed to help non-violent offenders who 
have trafficked in small amounts of drugs in order to support their 
addictions overcome their drug habits.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said yesterday the changes in the 
sentencing provisions are designed to target people the government 
considers at the root of the drug-supply problem: large-scale growers 
and traffickers, organized crime groups that finance their operations 
through drugs, and people who push drugs on children and teenagers.

"We've made it very clear that those individuals who are in the 
business of exploiting other people through organized crime and other 
aggravating factors - through this bill, we want to get serious with 
those individuals and send the right message to them ... you will be 
doing jail time," he said. "We want to put organized crime out of 
business in this country." But one expert says the changes will only 
help organized crime groups do more business in Canada.

"Tougher penalties for people who produce and traffic drugs will only 
scare the ma-and-pa producers, and organized crime will fill the 
gap," said Eugene Oscapella, a criminal lawyer who teaches drug 
policy at the University of Ottawa and once advised the Law Reform 
Commission of Canada on the issue.

"Organized crime doesn't care about the law. With these changes, this 
government is doing a service for organized crime." Oscapella says 
decades of experience with tough, mandatory penalties in the United 
States have proven that the threat of prison terms doesn't deter drug 
traffickers or growers, just as similar policies never deterred 
organized criminals and illegal bootleggers during the U.S. 
prohibition on alcohol.

"All we need to do is look south to the U.S. to see that mandatory 
minimum sentences don't work," he said. "This is insane; it baffles 
me. I can't believe that a man as intelligent as Stephen Harper, who 
understand economics, cannot understand the economics of 
prohibition." But Nicholson says the criminal production of drugs has 
increased and the federal government needs to respond.

"Drug trafficking, grow-ops, a whole host of activities, have become 
much worse in recent years, so we've got to stay up to date with the 
laws of this country," he said. "I think this is a measured, 
reasonable response to the challenges we face.

"I just want to catch up with the bad guys."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom